Alice in Oz
by Momsie.Popsicle
Summary: Before leaving Wonderland, Alice gets one last "Drink Me" bottle. On her 18th birthday she drinks it and is whisked away to Oz. An Oz without a wizard. Takes place before Dorothy's adventures in Oz, and is a mix of Oz from the books, the Wicked Musical and from the 1939 film. - On temporary hiatus
1. Drink Me

Alice pulled open her chest of drawers and looked at the small bottle containing the rainbow colored liquid for the five thousandth time, the elegantly simple tag "Drink Me" calling out to her. It had become an obsession for her. In the years since returning from Wonderland, she checked on the small vial at least once, sometimes two or three times per day. Part of the obsession was her curiosity as to what the rainbow drink would do. The other, more urgent drive to see and usually touch, the vial was a confirmation of her sanity. When she had returned from her journey ant told her sister and parents about everything that had happened, they'd laughed at her story and made dismissive comments on how imaginative she was. Their disbelief had hurt her so much that she initially forgot about the small bottle in the pocket of her apron. The rainbow drink, once remembered, became her secret confirmation that it wasn't all a dream. Dinah believed her, but the beloved feline could tell no one the truth.

She had returned to the riverbank dozens of times since that day so long before. Always looking for the tardy white rabbit, but she had never seen him again. The cone shaped bottle sat in an ornately carved jewelry box that she received on her thirteenth birthday. With no jewelry to speak of, she thought the box a perfect hiding place for the rainbow drink. Now, eleven years after receiving the bottle from the King of Hearts, she knew the time had come. -

With the sun setting on her eighteenth birthday, she lifted the bottle from the pretty box and the words that the Cheshire cat had sung when the king had slipped the bottle in her pocket echoed in her ear.

Exotic travel can be yours,

How great, the things you will learn.

But be forewarned, if you should go,

Once gone, you may Never Return.

The final warning was what made her hesitate to drink the concoction. "Never Return"? She worried. She would never again see her mom and dad, her sister or nanny? The idea brought tears to her eyes.

On the other hand, she also wouldn't have to marry that weasel, Preston Dunklemire. She cringed at the thought, her mind made up.

On her bed sat a basket with some biscuits and a bottle of wine. Alice remembered how the food changed her the last time and she didn't want to constantly grown and shrink. She considered the biscuits and decided to steal a few more from the kitchen as she left. After all, forever was quite a long time.

As Alice slipped the conical shaped bottle into the basket of food, Dinah leaped up on the bed and mewed demurely at her owner. Alice absently reached down and scratched the cat's ears. "Don't worry little Dinah," she murmured in assurance. You're coming with me this time. And you're going to love it. Wonderland is just full of mice and birds, you can chase them to your heart's delight. Oh, and you will love the Cheshire cat!"

Dinah looked at Alice with a baleful glance. _The very idea!_ Dinah thought. _Suggesting I mingle with that filthy, disappearing maniac she talks about. Why, I wouldn't sully my feet to walk on the same ground as that mongrel._ To punctuate the thought, Dinah climbed into the basket, next to the neatly wrapped biscuits, and began cleaning her paws. _You can carry me._

Alice smiled at Dinah, oblivious to the cat's decidedly menacing thoughts, and looked down at her pink party dress. She considered changing her dress because a party dress was not well suited for travel. Then she remembered the tea party at the March Hare's and how fancy they dressed playing croquet with the queen. A pretty frock such as she wore for her party would do nicely in those situations.

At last, Alice stopped dawdling and picked up the basket, Dinah and all. On her dresser she set a crisp, white envelope simply addressed "Mother and Father". Over the past weeks, as she had warred within herself as to whether or not she would drink the bottle, she had written and re-written a goodbye letter to her parents. She was not particularly close to her parents, her formative years having been spent primarily in the care of Agnes, her Nanny. The letter she wrote to Agnes took much longer to do than the one to her parents. She wished Agnes could come to wonderland with her, but even if the drink were enough for two people, which she wasn't sure it would be, Agnes was much older and Alice knew she didn't care for travel and would hate all the talking animals, often referring to Dinah as "that loathsome beast".

Alice tiptoed down the hallway, careful to avoid the creaking floorboard just outside her room. She stopped at Agnes's room and slipped the thoughtfully written letter under the old nanny's bedroom door. Then she hurried down the stairs, knowing that none of the steps creaked and they were far enough away from the bedrooms that the muted sound of her black kitten heels softly thumping on the carpeted stairs wouldn't wake anyone.

Two more stolen biscuits and a spur of the moment jar of jam as she passed through the kitchen and she was on her way to the riverbank where she first saw the white rabbit with the smart pocket watch and vest.

Moonlight glistened on the river and Alice stood at the base of the same tree where her sister had slumbered that lazy summer day eleven years before. It was early winter now, and the tree had long since shed the lush green leaves that had provided them cool shade that summer. Naked and frozen, lit only by the moon and stars, the tree now appeared as a witch to Alice. The idea was disturbing and Alice shuddered.

A rather annoyed meow called to her from the basked and Alice looked down at Dinah, who had wrapped a paw around the cone shaped bottle as was glaring at her as if to say "Are we going, or have you lost your nerve?" if Alice could hear the cat's thoughts, she'd know that the cat was thinking something similar, though much more cruel.

Alice took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and took the bottle from the old cat's paw. She let loose the breath, pulled the cork and drank the potion all in a smooth motion. The sweet drink tasted of strawberries, plums and watermelon.

A gust of wind blew by as she swallowed the last drop and she brushed her now wind-blown hair from her face and looked to see what effect the drink had. To her surprise, she neither grew, nor shrank. She didn't turn into a mouse or a rabbit. Nothing spectacular at all happened.

"Have I actually gone mad?" She asked Dinah, her voice heavy with disappointment. The cat meowed a snarky reply, but Alice could not hear it over the sound of the wind that again blew fiercely around them. Alice gathered the basket to her chest and worry crept over her that a blizzard was about to catch them. "Let's go home Dinah." she took a single step, but the wind was so strong it knocked her back three steps. The worry instantly changed into fear as she realized that she was no longer touching the ground at all, as the wind had sucked her up into the sky. As she floated through the air over the field, she realized she was in the center of a cyclone.

 _Of course!_ She thought, remembering the long rabbit hole she had fallen down before. _Since I'm not following the rabbit, the King of Hearts cleverly devised a different way for me to return to Wonderland._ This may take a while, she reasoned, since the rabbit hole had taken several hours and she now hat to take and indirect path to Wonderland. "Come Dinah, we should sleep while we're safely in the cyclone." Clutching the basket close so she didn't accidentally let go, Alive fell asleep easily, happy to be on her way back to the beautiful garden of Wonderland. She dreamed of the caterpillar, now a beautiful butterfly, of the poor lizard, Bill, who never seemed to catch a break, the sleep door mouse in the teapot. Yes, she thought she would be very happy to be back in Wonderland.


	2. The Munchkin, Rinda

Alice didn't know how long she slept, but when she woke she could tell it was daytime. She tried to look through the debris flying around her to see how far she had traveled, but no matter where she looked, she could not make out the landscape below. Dinah, lazy as she was, remained asleep in the basket with the biscuits. Seeing the biscuits reminded her that she hadn't eaten in a while and she unwrapped the bundle and made herself a breakfast of biscuits and jam.

"I wonder how much farther we must travel Dinah" she wondered aloud to the slumbering cat once she finished eating. No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the wind stopped blowing and the tornado disappeared, sending Alice and her cat free falling from several hundred feet in the air. Alice screamed and Dinah finally woke up, yowling and clawing at the basket, both sure that they would hit the ground hard enough to shatter their bones.

Their terror was short lived though, because in a matter of seconds their fall abruptly ended with the two of them landing in a river. Dinah howled furiously and practically sprinted across the surface of the water to the shoreline. Alice swam toward the same bank until her feet touched the sandy riverbed. When her feet hit solid, albeit underwater, ground she remembered her basked and looked around for it. She finally spotted it about ten yards down river, the bottled of wine bobbing like a cork and the biscuits floating about, polka-dotting the water.

"Oh no!" Alice exclaimed. "So much for my careful planning." She waded the rest of the way out of the river and sat on the muddy bank next to her slightly dry and extremely puffy cat. Her pretty, blue party dress was streaked with mud, and a slimy clump of algae was stuck in her hair.

Alice pulled the algae out of her hair and sat on the riverbank drying off until the hunger pangs drove her to move. Dinah, by then, had moved on from scowling at her to ignoring her. The cat was upset about Alice losing the basket, the forced bath, and to top it off, she had yet to see a single bird or mouse, despite Alice's assurance that wonderland had plenty.

With the sun high in the sky above them, Alice stood and looked around. She didn't know where any place was in wonderland -having wandered around lost during her first visit- but since she didn't even know where she was at that moment, she supposed it wouldn't even matter if she knew where everywhere else was either because she would still be lost. She did notice that the sun had been rising to her right so at least she knew which way was east. She didn't wan the sun in her eyes so she decided to go east, along the riverbank.

Water usually leads to civilization. " She reasoned aloud to Dinah, who stopped ignoring her long enough to glare at her. "Come along, Dinah. Let's see what lays to the East." Alice took a few steps and turned to see if her cat was following.

Dinah stared at her, but hadn't moved at all. "I told you,"Dinah said, "You can carry me."

Both Dinah and Alice's eye flew open in surprise when the cat spoke. Alice, because she'd never heard the cat speak, though she remembered that the animals in wonderland spoke quite a bit. Dinah was surprised because while she understood human, she had never before spoken it out loud. Always before, she'd heard a satisfyingly confusing meow or hiss that conveyed her feelings but kept her thoughts private. _I will have to guard my tongue here._ Dinah thought. Alice recovered from her surprise and meekly walked over to Dinah and obeyed the command, carrying the cat like a baby as she followed the riverbank to the East.

After about an hour of walking, Alice spotted what looked like a small blue house. While the house excited her, the cornfield behind it was what screamed out to her hungry tummy. Dinah also saw something that made her kitty tummy growl. Crows. The cat jumped from her owner's arms and bounded into the corn field, ready to stalk herself some dinner. Alice followed at a quickened pace, hoping the farmer would share some food with her.

As she neared the farm house, Alice wondered if an animal or human lived there. She saw how small the house was, and guessed animal, for if it were a human that lived there, they would have to be very small indeed.

Her knock on the door was greeted by a short man dressed in blue. It was clear that he was as surprised to see her standing outside his door as she was to find that the house was inhabited by a little person.

"Oh! Hello." Alice said, recovering quickly again from her surprise. "My name is Alice. My cat, Dinah, and I have dome a long way and I was hoping you would be so kind as to share some food with us."

"I have plenty of food," the little person replied, stepping inside and opening the door more. "You are welcome to come in and have some. Though, I don't know if I have anything a cat would eat."

Alice ducked down under the just barely too short doorway and entered the tiny house. "Oh, Dinah will be content eating a couple of the crows flying about out there." She said absently as she looked around the living area.

"Your cat eats birds?" The little man asked with wonder.

"Of course," Alice looked quizzically at the man. "Don't cats here eat birds?"

"I don't quite know. I've never seen a cat before. But I may get on for my corn field. The crows are constantly eating up my corn." The man walked into the small kitchen as he spoke and Alice followed. A pot of corn chowder sat simmering on the stove and a fresh pan of corn bread was cooling on the counter. The food looked and smelled delicious. Alice's mouth watered as she took the seat offered by the little man. The table and chair were just a little too small for her and she wondered if the food would make her shrink so she fit in the house better. Surely it wouldn't make her grow, or the man wouldn't give it to her whilst she sat in his kitchen.

She spooned a mouthful of the chowder placed before her and almost groaned from pleasure. The chowder was warm and savory, spices she'd never tasted before and the sharp bite of onions and peppers mellowed by sweet cream. The corn kernels burst in her mouth like capsules of sugared butter. She took a bite of the buttered corn bread and the delicate, warm morsel dissolved on her tongue.

She was so hungry, and the bowls were so small, Alice ate three bowls of chowder and two pieces of bread. While she ate she talked with the little man. She learned his name was Rinda and he was a forth generation corn farmer. His farm occupied a large portion of a country called Munchkinland, and he was soon to wed a pretty Munchkin girl who lived at the Capital of Munchkin land, Sapphire City. He told her about the Wicked witch, who ruled over the Munchkins, whose castle lay on the far East border of Munchkinland on the edge of the Impassible desert.

"I'm surprised that the queen hasn't commanded 'off with her head' by now." Alice said after learning of the witch.

"What queen?" Rinda asked.

"The queen of hearts of course."Alice replied with a smile. "The ruler of Wonderland."

"Well, I don't know where Wonderland is but Oz doesn't have a ruler. The four lands are governed by witches. The witch in charge of the Munchkins was killed by the witch to the East and she took over ruling us and the Winkies. If you ask me, the sooner we can get some witches trained up at Shiz to challenge these older witches, the better."

Alice fell silent for a minute digesting the food and the words. She wasn't in Wonderland. She was in some random place she never heard of. She started to freak out, but she realized that until she fell down the rabbit hold eleven years before, she had also never heard of Wonderland. And did it really matter where she lived? She had no roots in Wonderland so would this Oz place be any different? Not to mention, she remembered the inhabitants of Wonderland being by and large rude. Also, she could eat the food of Oz without shrinking or growing. The more she thought about it, the more she like the idea of being in Oz.

"It occurs to me Rinda," Alice finally said after processing the news that she wasn't in Wonderland. "That as a newcomer to Ox, I have no place to live and no means to pay for a house."

"Well," Rinda said doubtfully. "you are welcome to stay here, though, you are quite tall so you might not find it comfortable."

"Thank you so very much," Alice smiled at Rinda. "I appreciate your hospitality and I will spend tonight here, but I think I would much prefer someplace more my size."

"Well, You'll be able to find a larger house and work in either Sapphire City or Emerald City. Though, if your cat is really getting rid of those pesky crows I'll be sad to see you go."

"Why don't you build a scarecrow?" Alice asked. The short little corn farmer had never heard of such an thing, and said as much. "Oh, well, it's a straw man that you stick on a post in your corn field. The crows think it's a man and stay away. If you like, in the morning I'll help you build one."

"I would like that. Thank you" Rinda and Alice spent a good portion of the evening talking about Oz, the Sapphire and Emerald Cities, and of course, the witch who enslaved the people of Munchkin and Winkie Countries.

Alice felt her cockles go up as he regaled her with tales of the witches wicked deeds and as she went to sleep that night on the small couch, she decided that she would go to Sapphire City and become an Advocate for the Munchkins. She didn't like people being bullied and she wasn't scared of the witch. Well, she couldn't say she wasn't scared, but even being afraid of the witch, she felt she had to do something.

It was noon before they finished building the scarecrow, having spent the time to paint a cheerful face on the dummy. They hung him ion a newly erected post in the center of the corn field. At the suggestion of Alice, they build the scarecrow to be larger than a munchkin, as to better scare the crows. With Alice as a size model they sewed an outfit, stuffed it with straw and placed the cheery smiling head on top.


End file.
